Israelis, Palestinians hold teen funerals after West Bank violence

SHILO (AFP/APP): Israelis and Palestinians held funerals Wednesday for teenagers killed in a shooting targeting Israelis and an army raid on a Palestinian city, as violence rages in the occupied West Bank.
Mourners gathered in the Israeli settlement of Shilo around the shrouded body of 17-year-old Nahman Mordof. The teenager was one of four Israelis killed Tuesday when gunmen attacked a petrol station adjacent to nearby Eli settlement before being shot dead. Israeli forces later arrested three “wanted people” in the West Bank village of Orif, which the military said was home to the gunmen.
In Jenin, Palestine TV aired footage of girls in school uniform carrying the body of their classmate killed in an Israeli army raid on the city on Monday.
Sadil Naghnaghiya, 15, died from gunshot wounds sustained during the hours-long Israeli incursion, the Palestinian health ministry announced on Wednesday.
Six other Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy and a militant, were killed in the raid. A spokesman for the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Hazem Qassem, described Tuesday’s attack against Israelis as a “response to the crimes of the (Israeli) occupation” in Jenin and elsewhere. The European Union condemned the shooting as a “terror attack”.
“The EU is deeply worried about the ongoing escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory and continued settlement expansion,” the bloc said in a statement Wednesday.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967 and, excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.
The deadly shooting sparked reprisal attacks by Jewish settlers against residents of the nearby Palestinian town of Huwara, its mayor and a resident told AFP.
Several dozen people were wounded, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. An AFP reporter saw olive groves on fire.
Other settler attacks were reported in the evening, in Al-Lubban al-Sharqiya, near Eli, and in Beit Furik, another town in the northern West Bank.
“The destruction includes more than 10 homes, more than three commercial stores, this petrol station, the wheat field and many trees,” said Yaacoub Aweiss, head of Al-Lubban al-Sharqiya town council.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were “working on the ground in order to settle accounts with the murderers”. “Those who have attacked us are either in the grave or in prison, and so it will be here,” he said in a statement.
The army said Wednesday that its forces entered Orif village to “map the homes” of the shooters, a precursor to their demolition.
Israel routinely demolishes the homes of Palestinians it blames for deadly attacks on Israelis, arguing that such measures act as a deterrent.
Human rights activists say the policy amounts to collective punishment, as it can render non-combatants, including children, homeless.
The surge in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so far this year has killed at least 170 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian.
The tally compiled from official sources includes combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.